There's Science To Do
by QuantumPE
Summary: After an Earthquake during a scouting mission, Agent 3 and an Octoling soldier are swallowed in to depths of the Aperture Science. They must put their differences aside if they want to make it out alive. Please leave feedback in the comments. Updates will be sporadic. Rating will be T for crude language but may change later. Looking for characters names. Temp Cover by askwatersee.
1. Trouble in the Valley

Agents 3 and 4 hadn't been able to catch a break. They had been fighting Octarian forces all day on their mission to recover a captured Zapfish that was discovered being transported by Octarian forces to an unknown location in a recent scouting mission. The Cap'n wasn't entirely sure what they were using the Zapfish for but he had told them it must be something evil.

"Threeee let's take a break. Pleeease?" Agent 4 whined. "We've been walking and fighting all day" He said.

Agent 3 stopped and sighed while putting her hand over her face and pulling down. She then took a look around. They were currently walking down a path going along the face of a cliff on their way to the valley below them. A little farther down the path she noticed an indentation in the cliff side with w large rock jutting up from the ground that provided decent cover. "Fine, we can take a short break up ahead. But then is back to the task at hand" she told him while motioning towards the rock she saw. Then they both started walking

"Finally!" Agent 4 exclaimed in relief as they finally reached the cover. He then proceeded to fall to the ground in an over dramatic manner.

Agent 3 scoffed at the display. 'He always acts so childish' she thought to herself. Granted, he still was only 15, so he still technically was a child but he could at least act his age on a mission as dangerous as this. She continued to watch him take off his shoes and start rubbing his feet while groaning.

Agent 3 had seen enough of 4's antics and needed a distraction. "I'm going to keep watch for enemy movement. You stay here" she declared while pointing at him. She then promptly turned around and started walking farther down the Cliffside towards a good vantage point.

Agent 3 stood at her post for probably 10 minutes with no sign of enemy activity. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Maybe Agent 4 was right, this little break from walking was pretty nice. Speaking of Agent 4, Agent 3 decided it was probably time to continue walking. She was just about to start heading back to Agent 4's location when a gleam caught her attention from the valley below. She quickly pulled up her binoculars and looked down at the source of the gleam. When she did so what she saw made her freeze.

Crouched down in the middle of the valley was an Octoling. But the Octoling herself was not what made her freeze. She had battled many Octoling soldiers in her time as an agent and taken them out without a problem. No what make her freeze was the object that this Octoling was currently resting on a rock as a stabilizer and aiming right at Agent 3.

Agent 3 hardly had enough time to duck down before a barrage of purple ink shot directly through the air where her head was at only moments before and collided with the cliff face behind her. If she hadn't ducked when she had then she would be dead right now. She didn't have time to get Agent 4 for back up as the Octoling Sniper was already charging up another shot. With not many options at her disposal Agent 3 jumped down into the valley below.

Agent 3 could feel the wind as she plummeted into the valley below. The ground was quickly approaching and Agent 3 was praying that her loosely made plan worked. If it didn't work, well then this was going to hurt. A Lot. The fall would not kill her but the speed she was falling at meant that her body would most likely take on most of the impact. She really hoped her plan for landing softly worked. Or else the Octoling would most certainly have time to take her out before she would be able to stand again.

Agent 3 watched as the ground got closer with nervous anticipation. She quickly tightened her grip of her dualies as she fell. Just as she was about to hit the ground she shot a puddle of green ink onto the ground below and turned into her squid form as she hit the puddle with a big splash.

Once the ink settled, Agent 3 hopped out of the ink and reverted back to her inkling form. She then let out a small chuckle, relieved that her idea had worked. 'I'm so glad that plan actually worked' she though.

Her relief was short lived however as a jet of purple ink flew past her head, missing her by only mere centimeters. She quickly dodge rolled behind a rock and started scoping the best path to take down the Octoling. The Octoling was in the middle of the valley and there where various trees and rocks that would provide enough cover for her to get in range to hit her with her Hero Dualies. After she had formulated a good path, she took a deep breath and started to run.

Meanwhile Agent 4 groggily awoken from a light nap. He gently rubbed the drowsiness from his eyes and stretched his arm muscles. He took a look around him and saw no signs of Agent 3. He checked the time and found that almost 17 minutes had passed. 'Three should have come back by now' he thought to himself worried. He pulled himself off the ground and walked to the entrance of the alcove.

He was greeted to the sound of gunfire from the valley below him. The entire area was full of green and purple ink. However he saw no signs of Agent 3 or any Octarian forces she could be fighting. He scanned the area for any indication of movement. Then he saw them. On the far side of the valley, Three had an Octarian soldier cornered and surrounded by a ring of ink. Just as she was about to finish the Octoling off there was a low rumble the resonated through the valley. Soon after the entire ground started to shake violently. Agent 4 also felt the quake and crouched down to avoid falling over.

Soon after he had gotten low to the ground he heard a cracking noise from behind and above. He snapped his head around at the sound and his pupils shrunk to pin pricks. The earthquake had caused a landslide that was heading straight at where he was currently laying. If he stayed still he was going to be buried alive. Without thinking he shot a path of ink to the side and dove in, narrowly avoiding the sharp rocks as they flew past him.

Agent 4 was not the only one who experienced troubles due to the earthquake, Agent 3 had kept her eyes on the Octoling sniper during the quake so that she couldn't use it as a distraction and escape for backup. The Octoling on the other hand was in a panic. She had already taken two hits from the Inkling Agent once in the thigh and once in her left shoulder, which had caused her to drop her only weapon. She could feel the foreign ink slowly sapping away her strength and leaving burns on her skin as it dripped down. If she were to take two more hits then she would without a doubt be dead. Then the earthquake had started, at first the Octoling had felt relief, thinking the quake might save her by causing a distraction and allow her to escape with her life. Unfortunately, that relief was short lived when she realized the inkling hardly seemed deterred by the chaos around them. Then she heard a sound make her stomach drop.

*_**Crack**_*

In between the Octoling and Agent 3 a large crack formed on the ground. This occurrence was enough to cause both parties to freeze and stare at the crack.

*_**Snap**_*

The break in the ground spider webbed out from the center in a circular area. Both Agent 3 and the Octoling soldier were within the radius of said circle. Both of them looked at each other, Agent 3 finally slipping up and showing slight signs of fear on her face. The Octoling on the other hand had the look of absolute terror and despair on her face. This was it, this was how she was going to die. Not by the hands of an inkling soldier, but being swallowed by the very earth that her kind was forced to dwell in. Her only happy thought was that the same fate would be shared by her enemy. This thought gave her some comfort but it did little to stop her overall fear.

Then the earth went still. Nobody moved for a few precious seconds. The two of them continued to look at each other. Three's fear quickly diminished as soon as the earth stopped shaking. Realizing she was showing weakness with her face she hardened her expression. She raised her dualies back to the Octoling to put her out of her misery. While doing so she unknowingly shifted her weight forwards.

*_**Crack**_*

The shift in weight caused the earth to give way completely and both Inkling and Octoling disappeared into the depths of the earth.

As soon as the earth had stopped shaking, Agent 4 had popped his head out of his ink puddle. When he decided that it was safe he fully emerged from his ink. He then ran to the ledge in search of Agent 3. He saw that she was okay, although there was an extremely worrisome crack that surrounded both Three and the Octarian soldier. If he didn't know any better he would say the ground looked like it was about to give way. His fear was confirmed when Three stepped forwards slightly and a loud cracking sound echoed throughout the valley. At the same time Agent 4 saw the ground disappear into the earth.

"**THREE!**" he called out as she disappeared.

His call was never heard by its intended recipient however as his call was drowned out by Agent 3's own screams in addition to the Octoling's as they fell into the depths.

Agent 4 was about to contact Cap'n Cuttlefish to inform him of the emergency when he realized that Three had the communicator on her. He was unable to check the hole himself as the landslide had blocked the way to the valley and he was not brave enough to jump of the cliff. Making up his mind, he decided the best course of action would be to run and get backup. With that he started running back in the direction of the kettle.

**And so that concludes the first chapter. Now as much as I love reading, my skills as a writer are in my opinion mediocre. Most likely, this chapter is full of run on sentences. But anyways back to this story. The idea for this story came to me after I was watching video of streamer playing Splatoon 2, I had also recently listened to Portal 2's end credit song because I'm a big fan of the series. But this also got me thinking. If G.L.a.D.O.S supposedly is self-sustaining and will "Live Forever" then 12,000 years should be nothing. Her facility is underground so the flood would not affect her at all. She has no knowledge of the current abilities of the new species on the surface besides the fact that they are intelligent enough to form civilizations and speak their own language. This led me to the idea to combine the two series and have G.L.a.D.O.S test the new dominate creatures of the planet, in the name of science of course. Some things going forwards, I know that Half-Life is technically apart of Portal's universe, but I do not have enough knowledge of the Half-Life games to reliably add it into the story. They may be mentioned later in the story but for now they won't show up. Also I am still looking for names of the characters. I am going to be using Agent names until I decide on actual names.**


	2. Into the Depths

**Before I start this chapter I want to thank everyone who has read and reviewed this story already. It really brightens my day when people do that. Also I noticed a few instances where I had made some typos in the previous chapter, I have fixed all the ones I had found but if you find some that are still there feel free to point them out. Also if you read my previous authors note before I updated it, then you may have seen the part about not including the Half-Life series, I've changed it a little bit. As of now they still won't play a major role but they may be mentioned in some shape or form. With that out of the way, let's get on with the chapter!**

Agent 3 awoke in a coughing fit, there was dust and debris everywhere, her eyes stung and her vision was blurry. She attempted to sit up but her body immediately protested that idea and her muscles cried out in agony. Pushing through the pain she forced herself into an upright position and pulled herself to her feet. Her eyes where still agitated but the blurriness had begun to fade. With her newly returned sight she took a look at her surroundings. What she saw was not what she expected to find after falling into the depths of the earth.

All around her there were old dirty white walls. Lining the walls were massive tower like devices that Agent 3 could not tell the function of, However, There were also some objects in the room that she recognized. There were also office chairs, desks, and a few broken coffee mugs laying around. A few things struck her as odd about these objects though. For one, everything in the room was massive compared to what they should be. It was like the room was made for giants. Secondly, the place looked like it was deserted in a hurry, a lot of the office chairs where toppled over and the ones that weren't were far away from the desks. A third thing that struck her as odd was that the room had lights that were flickering but on. That meant power of some kind, but from where? She did not have a clue.

Three then looked up and noticed the ceiling had a large hole in it. Through the hole was nothing but darkness, save for a tiny ball of light the size of a baseball shining from above. The Surface, it had to be.

'How far did I fall?' Three though as she stared at the light.

She knew that as big as the hole was that she fell down to only be providing light the size of a baseball she fell a very long distance. It was a very good thing that she had no bones or that fall would have killed her for sure. Not that she didn't feel like she was dying though, her entire body ached and she felt like she may have a concussion.

As she was looking around she felt like she was forgetting something very important. She then looked down at her legs and realized what was wrong, Her Hero Dualies were not in her possession. She frantically started searching the rubble for her precious weapons. After digging through the rubble near where she regained consciousness she uncovered a metallic yellow object. She frantically uncovered the rest of the Hero Dualie and inspected it all over looking for damage. It was dented in quite a few places but the damage was all superficial. It would still fire without a problem. She continued to dig in search of her second Dualie. When she uncovered it her mood fell. The gun was in several pieces and there was no hope the weapon would ever be fixed. She also uncovered the sparking remains of her communicator when had been destroyed on impact with the ground.

Now that she had her a weapon, she took off her ink tank and inspected it for damage as well. It was cracked in quite a few places but it still held ink well, the cracks did not travel all the way through the glass. There was a few cracks that were leaking, but luckily they were small and at the very top of the tank. Plus they only leaked when the tank was full or laying on its side. Satisfied with the tanks condition she reconnected it and stood up from the ground.

Now armed she realized something else was unaccounted for, the Octoling that she encountered was still missing. She raised her single Dualie to her chest and scanned the room for movement. Gazing around the room she spotted an arm. Said arm was currently sticking out from under a bunch of rubble, and protruding through the arm at an awkward angle was a somewhat rusty looking hollow metal rod. The sides of the rod were coated in a dark sickly purple, much darker than ink. It was blood, Octarian blood to be exact. The same blood that was currently seeping from the Octoling's arm. There was also a large amount of lighter purple ink coating the ground around where the Octoling was buried. Considering the amount of ink that was flowing out and its location, Three assumed the Octoling's Ink Tank had been busted open. That would mean the Octoling would have no ammo should she still be alive.

Three debated whether she should shoot the Octoling to insure she was dead or leave her be. Shooting her would require uncovering her first and the rubble on top of the Octoling was large pieces and look very heavy. Three decided to save herself the trouble and left her be, with that decision out of her way Three started to make her way to a large doorway that lead out into a hallway. She still have absolutely no clue who built this underground complex, but right now she was on a mission. A mission to get to the surface as soon as possible. Throughout the hallway where many doors leading to rooms almost exactly the same as the room she woke up in. Each one deserted messy and coated with dust. One room in particular had a sign with a language on it that Three had never seen before.

This farther proved to her that whatever beings made this place, they were not Inklings or Octotarians. Continuing to the end of the large hallway she encountered something new. It looked like a door of some kind but it was circular in shape and had no door knob of any kind. In the middle of the door there was a smaller circle and a green light. As Three approached the door the center circle spun and the door split in half and disappeared into the ceiling and floor. Three looked at the doorway for a moment to see if anything else would happen. A few seconds went by without anything else so Three continued her journey. However, as soon as she walked through the door, it immediate closed its self and a click was heard. Three spun around to look at the door and found that the green light had been replaced with a red one. When she approached the door again she found that this time the door would not open.

"Carp! The door is locked" Three yelled. 'I guess I'll have to keep moving and find another exit if I want to make it out of here' she thought to herself.

Turning back around, she noticed that she was in another hallway. This hallway was much cleaner than the previous one had been though. The walls were a pristine white, and the lights on the ceiling were all on. Whatever was giving this place power had to be enormous, no zapfish besides the Great Zapfish could provide this much power. 'Perhaps whoever built this place have another Great Zapfish in this place?' She wondered. This hallway only had three entrances, the end of the hall opened up into some sort of grated walkway, a second doorway was another circular doorway like the one she had just encountered, and the door behind her which was now locked. As Three walked down this new hallway she could not shake the feeling that she was being watched. She looked around and saw no one, she tried to shake the feeling but was unable to do so.

What Three failed to see was a white cylindrical object with a flashing red light mounted to the wall, following her every move. Deep within the facility in the central core's control room an automated voice rang out.

"_**Two lifeforms detected in Wing 24C" **_

At this announcement the central core known as G.L.a.D.O.S, diverted some of her attention from her testing to investigate this anomaly. No lifeforms had been detected in her facility for 12,000 years. Not since she had convinced herself to release **[REDACTED] **to the surface. She had lost contact with her surface dwelling sensors after a massive flood had occurred. Her calculations had yielded that it would exterminate all mammalian life on the planet. Because of this she had stopped keeping tabs on what was happening topside. She spent all of her time testing while utilizing the Co-Operative Testing Initiative.

She checked over the security footage and found herself looking at some kind of humanoid figure. This creature clearly was not human however, the creature was about the size of a human child, had a body temperature much lower than a human should, her scans indicated that the creature possessed no skeleton structure, and the creature seemed to have tentacle limbs on its head instead of hair. This lead G.L.a.D.O.S to come to the conclusion that this creature was an evolved form of sea life. The second lifeform was in a section of the facility that G.L.a.D.O.S had no control over, she sent a security bot to investigate it.

The creature that G.L.a.D.O.S could see was clothed and was carrying a weapon of unknown origin. This indicated that the creature was in some way intelligent. **"A perfect candidate for a new variety of testing" **G.L.a.D.O.S said while chuckling evilly. In the background G.L.a.D.O.S got to work building a new set of tests. She also decided it would be a wise idea to check on the surface. All of her terrestrial sensors were destroyed in the flood, but she also had access to an Aperture Science Satellite.

Upon connecting to it she found it severely out of alignment. A few course corrections later she had a live view of the state of the world. 90% of the earth's land mass was now under the sea. G.L.a.D.O.S was also able to pick up large amount of radio transmissions. While analyzing the new data she discovered humanity had indeed been wiped out by the flood and these sea creature evolved to dwell on the remaining land. She dedicated part of her processing power to translating these new creature's language so she could properly convey the tests she was planning on preforming.

Meanwhile back in the room with all of the rubble a certain Octoling was starting to regain consciousness. Valerie awoke to an excruciating pain shooting her left arm. Her eyes immediately began to water and she screamed out in pain. Something was very wrong, the worst part was that she couldn't even see her arm to understand why it hurt so badly. She was also very light headed at the moment, which was not a good sign. She could feel ink puddling underneath her. Turning into octopus form she attempted to swim away from the rubble. She was able to get her body out from the ruble but found that she could not swim very far and the pain from her arm did not disappear. Returning to her Octoling form she found the source of her pain. The barrel of her charger had snapped off and stabbed straight through her arm. Her movements caused her to start bleeding faster.

Just looking at the sight made Valerie want to throw up. It also made her want to pass out but that was most likely blood loss. She needed to pull the metal out if she was going to get anywhere. She also knew it was a bad idea to pull embedded objects out because it causes faster bleeding. But she was out of options at the moment. She took a few moments to collect herself before grabbing her left arm with her right and pulling up as hard as she could. Valerie could feel the metal barrel sliding through her arm as she pulled and the feeling made her cringe. Six painful tugs later and her arm was free from the barrel. It was also now spraying blood now. Not thinking much she shoved her bleeding limb deep into the ink puddle. The pain in her arm dulled significantly, but did not fully dissipate.

Ink was a well-known healing agent used in most medical facilities for a variety of purposes. Ink's main medical use is as a neutralizer agent to treat foreign ink burns, however it also could be used to cauterize physical wounds and form protective scabs to speed up the healing process.

Valerie slowly pulled her arm out of the ink to investigate the damage. The wound had been completely sealed by a dark purple scab on both sides of her arm, it still hurt quite a lot but she was no longer bleeding. She let out a sigh of relief that she wasn't going to bleed to death. Exhaustion finally began to take ahold of her however and she was becoming woozier by the second the room began to spin and she toppled over.

In her semi-conscious state she could just barely hear the sound of clanking footsteps approaching her. Her eyes drifted over to a door way where a large figure emerged. The only thing Valerie paid any attention to though was the single red eye in the center of the figures body. The figure sounded like it was attempting to communicate with her, but she paid the figure no mind. She could only think about how tired she was. She scarcely remembered the feeling of being dragged before she drifted into unconsciousness.

Valerie awoke sometime later from a dreamless sleep. She looked around and found herself in a room much different than when she passed out. Mainly she was trapped in a glass box laying on a metal table of some kind. In the corner of the room a radio was playing a strange but catchy tune. As she sat up a loud beep was heard from above and a voice rang throughout the entire room in perfect Oceanic.

_**"Hello and, again, welcome to the Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment center."**_

**Author's Note: Well that's chapter two written and done. G.L.a.D.O.S has found some intruders in her facility, Valerie is injured and captured, and Agent 3 is wandering around the halls with G.L.a.D.O.S secretly on her trail. I'd like to thank .1 for providing me with the name Valerie, which is now the Octoling's name. For those who still want to provide names, I have a name in mind for Agent 3 but I haven't made up my mind yet. As for Agent 4 I still am looking, he will play a bigger role towards the end so there's plenty of time to look. If you find any error in grammar or spelling please let me know! Also I have an idea that will probably turn out to take too time but what if along with this story I also attempted to animate this story? The animation will definitely be cringe worthy, and I'm not sure if I can get all the room models that I will need but if I can would you guy's be interested in it? I'll let everyone know next chapter if it's feasible or not. It may end up just being badly photoshopped pictures. Anyways that's all I have for now see ya guys later.**


	3. Commence Testing

**Well I'm back with chapter 3, and I have a question for you. Have you ever had a really ambitious idea that you really like and want to do? Then discover how much of a daunting task bringing said idea into fruition truly is? Well, this is how I'm feeling about trying to animate this. I've acquired all the models I should need as well as most of the maps I am planning on using. (I'm going to be animating some scenes directly in some of Portal 2's maps.) But it may be a while before I release any of the animations as I am having issues with the world lighting making the program freak out. But enough about that for now, we have chapter 3 to get too.**

_**"Hello and, again, welcome to the Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment center."**_

The voice reverberated throughout the glass box Valerie found herself in. She instinctively looked for the source of the voice but saw no one. Instead all she managed to see was a camera locked onto her through the glass. "Hello?" she called out.

_**"Your specimen has been processed and we are now ready to begin the test proper."**_

Valerie furrowed her brows in confusion, what did the voice mean by specimen? Before she could voice her question however, the voice continued.

_**"Before we start, however, keep in mind that although fun and learning are the primary goals of all enrichment center activities, serious injuries may occur." For your own safety and the safety of others, please refrain from touching [bzzzzzt]**_ _**Por favor bordón de fallar Muchos gracias de fallar gracias (roughly translates as "Please refrain from failing Many thanks")**_

Valerie's face turned from slightly confused to completely lost at the sound of the new language. She didn't even know what to think of it. Was that even a language? She wasn't sure. She shook her head to clear her confusion. Suddenly a buzzer sounded, and the voice spoke again.

"_**Stand Back, the portal will open in Three. Two. One."**_

__Suddenly an orange light flashed in front of her and Valerie felt her mind crack slightly. She could see herself in the orange circle that appeared on the wall. It was almost like a reflection, except it was wrong. She wasn't looking back at herself; she was instead looking at herself from the side. She looked to her right and through the glass she saw a similar circle, this one was blue, and she could again see herself looking at herself. Her mind was screaming that was a trick. A hoax, it had to be. Just a screen projecting footage of her. Portals weren't real they were science fiction. She was so sure the portal was fake that she went to put her hand on it to prove it to herself.

When she did however, she found that her hand passed straight through the supposedly fake portal, her arm emerging from the other side of the glass. She quickly pulled her hand back and inspected it carefully. There were visible no signs of anything wrong. She repeated the process and found that whatever part of her arm was directly in the rift of the portal had a slight tingly feeling. Gathering her confidence, she and piecing her shattered view of reality, she stepped completely through the portal.

Once on the other side of the portal she noticed a camera locked onto her with a red light on it indicating that it was on. Valerie assumed that whoever was speaking to her was watching her through the cameras as well. She assumed the voice would speak up again however that did not seem to be the case. To her right was a large white display with the numbers "00" on it. At the bottom of the sign there was some sort of writing, it looked to be written in the language found on precursor artifacts, but their language had yet to be deciphered, so she couldn't understand the writing. Continuing to look around she saw that there was a doorway leading to another room on the other side of the room, so she decided to head in that direction.

Inside the new room there was large button that was bigger than she was. There was a door on the far end of the room. Beside which there was a glass tube entering in from the ceiling. A hatch on the tube opened and a cube dropped into the room. Valerie assumed that she was supposed to get the cube onto the button. Finding no way to easily lift the cube as it was just as big as her, she started pushing it. When she managed to push the cube onto the button the door opened, and the voice began speaking again.

"_**Excellent. Please proceed into the chamber lock after completing each test." "First, however, note the incandescent particle field across the exit." "This Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid will vaporize any unauthorized equipment that passes through it — for instance, the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube."**_

In the doorway there was a light blue forcefield humming with energy. Behind it was what seemed to be an elevator. Following the voice's instructions, Valerie proceed to the elevator, which closed behind her and began its descent.

Back in the Central A.I. chamber, G.L.a.D.O.S. was busy multitasking. Currently she was designing new tests with the new test subject's size in mind. The weighted storage cubes were too big for the test subject to manipulate easily, and as fun as it was to watch the test subject struggle to push an overly large cube, she decided it would be better to replace all the supercollider buttons with push buttons until a Portal Device had been obtained. The other task she was focused on was locating and capturing the other future test subject who was currently loose in the manufacturing wing of the facility.

G.L.a.D.O.S. still had little control over the manufacturing wing, the most she could do was control what the manufacturing wing produced. She also had no vision in that wing either thanks to the time when **[REDACTED]** and the little idiot bowling ball had their little escape sabotage plan. She had tried to send Blue and Orange there to install new cameras, but the task proved to be to much for them, as they broke every single one before they even made it to the wing. They seemed to be obedient and competent when separated, but when they were together, they became immature and reckless. For this reason, she had sent Orange, equipped with a stun gun, alone to track down the lifeform and capture it.

Meanwhile in the manufacturing wing, a circular door twisted open with a hiss as Agent 3 strode through. She had been navigating through the complex's various walkways. After she had moved on from the hallway where she felt like she was being watched she found herself in an enormous network of open walkways with large glass tubes full of various items webbing through the large room and snaking between the walking paths. The area was much larger than any of the Octo Domes she had seen. The tubes seemed to stretch out in every direction and disappeared into the fog in the distance. Agent 3 didn't know what their purpose was to the facility was, but there was certainly a lot of them. The feeling of being watched had left her after she left the hallways and entered the catwalks.

This allowed her to lower her guard slightly and relax a little. Glancing at the tubes as she walked, she continued through the large room and started thinking on how to get out of this place. She also began to notice the distinct lack life in the place. Surely with all this machinery running there must be someone around to manage it all. After a while the catwalk reached the end of the room and ended with another door. It opened with a hiss as she approached. Walking through the doorway brought her into another large room with more catwalks. But that was the most interesting thing in the room.

All throughout the room where extremely large gray metallic structures. They were a variety of different shapes and they all hung from the ceiling on a type of rail system. In the center of the room was another box structure but this one was being assembled by lots of mechanical arms. Three had never seen so many robotic machines before. Robotics was a relatively new field of study in Inkopolis. All of the robotics created by inking scientists so far had been small prototypes. The Octarians had a much better understanding of the field and used that knowledge to build the Great Octoweapons and other machines like the flooders. The structure was almost complete now, Three noted that the structure was hollow on the inside and constructed out of white and gray panels. After the last panel was put into place the structure was lifted by the rail system and all the other structures moved over and the robotic arms started working to build another structure. Watching the machinery, a little while longer, Three decided to move on. After she made it to the end of the catwalk, she was met with yet another door leading deeper into the facility. Just as the door hissed shut, Orange was making their way into the manufacturing wing looking for any signs of a disturbance.

**And that's chapter 3 done with Orange hot on Three's tail. There are a few sections of this chapter that I've rewritten around 4 times, and I'm still not completely happy with them. I think the wording could be better, but I just wanted to get this chapter out. My next semester at my University starts up on Monday so my time I can spend writing is going to go down the summertime drain. I will still write on weekends but expect even bigger delays in chapter output. This is one reason I don't force myself to release chapters on a set schedule. I'd never be able to stick to it. I've also spent some time since last chapter getting myself familiar with the Half-Life series. This has given me some good ideas for a sequel, but I also went through Portal 2's game files. I found some audio files of Cave Johnson from the Perpetual Testing initiative that I found hilarious and inspiring. Also, I've decided on a name for Agent 3, Agent 4 sill is needing a name.**


	4. Different

**Hello everyone, well I finished my fall semester a few week ago, so now I'm on Christmas/New Year's Break. I've been trying to write this chapter for a while now but my college life hasn't left me with much free time. I still have big plans for this story and I don't intend to let it die like some of my other stories. I also wanted to mention that the test order in this story is not sticking directly to the game, I will be adding and removing tests as I see fit and eventually plan on making up tests on the spot. Anyways I want to keep this author's note short so let's continue with the story. **

**PS: One last quick note: If a sentence is **_**Bold and italics, **_**then G.L.a.D.O.S., the turrets, or the announcer is speaking through a speaker system. I may also use it for radio transmissions from time to time as well. If the sentence is also ****underlined**** that indicates that they are speaking English and isn't understood by Octolings and Inklings.**

* * *

The elevator came to a stop and the doors hissed open to reveal a circular room with a corridor traveling forwards. Valerie stepped out of the elevator and the doors hissed close. After clearing the first test room with the huge button, the following tests used smaller hand push buttons instead. She had just cleared the third test and entered the beginning of the forth. So far the tests had been simple but more complicated with each one.

Valerie proceeded down the corridor. As she approached she began hearing the whirling noise of a motor. The corridor she was walking down made a ninety degree turn to the right and ended in a dead end. On the left side of the corridor there was a small square hole that looked like it lead to an adjacent room. The sound of the motor was also being emitted through the little hole. Seeing as the hole was the only plausible way to proceed Valerie peered through it, and immediately dropped to the ground as a blue ball of energy shot through the hole and right through the area her head had been.

The blue energy ball zipped through the air and hit the wall behind her and opened up into a blue portal. Valerie's hearts were racing, she had no idea if the energy ball would harm her but she had no intention of finding out. She took a moment to calm herself before approaching the blue portal right as she was about to step through, there was the sound of another energy ball flying through the air. Valerie instinctively looked back to the hole expecting to have to dodge another energy ball. However, this was not the case, for there was no energy ball to be seen.

When she faced back to the portal she found that it had vanished. The sounds of the motor rotating could be heard through the gap in the wall again. Valerie moved to the gap once again and carefully looked through. On the other side of the wall, she saw a large room with a podium in the center with a strange weapon looking device attached to the top of it. The entire podium was rotating, likely the cause of the motor hum she was hearing. The weapon rotated until it was facing the back wall when it stopped and fired a blue energy ball.

The ball hit the back wall and a blue portal opened up, the weapon then started rotating again. 'This must be about timing' she thought as the weapon fired another shot at the wall to the right of the room. The weapon started rotating to face her and the gap again, Valerie started to get ready to duck. "Alright…One…Two…Three!" She ducked just as the blue energy projectile sailed over her. She didn't waste any time on the ground this time and quickly dove through the blue portal on the wall.

"AAAAH….HHHHN…NNNN!"

Valerie let out a half suppressed scream. She now found herself on the ground and in agonizing pain, when she had dove through the portal she had instinctively used her arms to brace her dive and protect her head, by doing so however she had landed right on the scabbed wound on her left arm. She could already feel the slight burning sensation in her eyes as she started to tear up. She pulled her injured arm to her chest and got herself in a sitting position and clenched her jaw.

Eventually, the pain dulled down after a few moments. Valerie rotated her injured arm to examine the scabs. Luckily, they had not been ripped off from the dive. That would not have been good. 'I really need to find some sort of bandage to cover this thing up. If these scabs are removed then I'll bleed out for sure' she thought.

She managed stand up and observe where the portal had taken her. Behind her was the orange portal, and in front of her was a wall. To her right was again another wall and to her left was the room with the rotating podium and weapon. The small area she was standing in was raised up at least twelve feet above the floor with the podium. From her vantage point she could now see that the floor below had arrows pointing towards the podium.

'Am I supposed to go to the podium?' she thought. 'There's not really any other place to go and the arrows on the floor makes it look like the weapon is the objective. "Well, here goes nothing I guess…" She was about to make the jump down from the ledge when the sound of a new blue portal caught her attention. "On second thought, I have a better idea" she thought. Instead she walked back through the orange portal and exited the blue portal that had just opened down by the podium.

Valerie cautiously made her way up the podium and as she did so the podium stopped spinning mid turn and the claps holding the weapon onto the podium snapped open. She took this as a sign to pick up the weapon, so she did. As soon as the weapon was in her arms the podium started to retract into the floor. She spun the weapon in her arms and inspected it closely.

It was a glossy white color with a black seam down its center and a blue circular light on top. A black cylindrical part extended from the white base and resembled a barrel although there was no hole for a projectile to travel through. At the operational end of the gun was a smaller glossy white section on the bottom that functioned well as a hand hold for stabilization. There were also three claw like spikes at the firing end of the gun. Their purpose however completely eluded Valerie. On the butt of the weapon was a hole the size of her fist. Inside of the hole in the device she could see two triggers. Valerie had put her right arm into the hole when there was a beep and the strange voice started speaking again.

**"**_**Very good! You are now in possession of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.**__**With it, you can create your own portals.**__**These intra-dimensional gates have proven to be completely safe. The Device, however, has not. Do not touch the operational end of The Device. Do not look directly at the operational end of The Device. Do not submerge The Device in liquid, even partially. Most importantly, under no circumstances should you…*Bzzzt*"**_the voice was interrupted with a blast of static noise.

'WHAT SHOULD I NOT DO?!' Valerie was mentally screaming. She did not say anything out loud though because her questions had been ignored the last few times she asked. Realizing that the voice was done speaking, Valerie decided to test out the new gun. Looking back up to where the orange portal was she found that it had moved to the ledge on the other side of the wall that had blocked her path before. She aimed the portal gun at the wall and pulled the trigger. The portal gun fired a blue energy ball at the wall and a blue portal formed, just like it had when it was on the podium. Curious of its function Valerie then tried to pull the second trigger. However, when she attempted to pull it the portal gun vibrated a good bit and made a buzzer sound, but no energy bolt was shot.

This puzzled Valerie, 'why is there a second trigger if it doesn't do anything?' she thought. 'Perhaps it's broken?' she theorized. Whether or not that truly was the case mattered not to her as she did not know how to fix it even if it was in fact broken. Turning her attention back to the blue portal she decided to fire it again. This time she aimed for the floor in front of her and pulled the working trigger, and a blue portal opened up on the floor.

'So they can be opened on the floor as well? That is an interesting discovery.' Deciding it was probably time she finished this test she hopped through the portal on the ground and found herself in front of the exit. Walking through the blue force field at the exit the portal gun noticeably vibrated. Valerie momentarily stopped at the sensation, the gun was still there and hadn't been vaporized. She didn't know why it vibrated but figured it was just a quirk of the weapon. Moving on to the lift at the end of the hall she got in as the doors hissed closed behind her.

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Agent 3 had been walking aimlessly through the facilities for hours now. After she had left the catwalk area she had entered a room full of moving conveyor belts. On these conveyor belts were lots of metal, plastic and crushed up rubble. The conveyor belts were transporting the rubbage to the end other end of the room where there was an opening in the wall glowing bright orange and giving off lots of heat. 'Most likely an incinerator' she thought. The entire room was filled with these conveyor belts, it also seemed like each conveyor belt contained a different kind of rubbage material.

On the opposite side of the room from her was another door, but the conveyor belts blocked her path. If she was to get to that door then she would have to cross the conveyor belts. As she hopped onto the closest belt a deep monotone voice started speaking in a language she didn't understand.

"_**The Aperture Science Product Recycling and Turret Redemption Lines are not rides, please remove yourself from the conveyor line."**_

Ignoring the strange incomprehensible voice she continued to ride the conveyor belt towards the incinerator. As she got close, she saw what looked like a ventilation vent that was close enough to jump onto. Once she was onto the vent she noticed that in between the conveyor belts had no floor, instead there was what seemed to be a bottomless drop that stretched into the abyss.

"How far down does this facility go?" she asked herself out loud. She knew that she had fallen a great distance when she first got down into the facility. She had also taken a few lifts downwards to get to the level she was at currently. Now it seems that the facility goes even deeper still. Clearing her head and focusing back on the task of getting to the other side of the room without falling, she starting walking down the air duct towards the

After crossing a few more air ducts and conveyor belts, she made it to the other side of the room. Jumping off of the finial belt she made her way to the door and out onto another catwalk. As she approached a turn in the catwalk she began faintly hearing what sounded like rapid explosions. As she rounded the corner Three was met with a sight that set her on nerve. A red laser was now set directly between her eyes. On the other end of the laser was a small white pill shaped thing with a glowing red eye in the center of its body. The creature was balance on three tripod like legs. Three through it too artificial looking to be a living creature. Also taking into account the fact that Three had yet to see another being in the entire facility she explored, she suspected that this creature was more likely a robot like the arms she had seen building the cubes earlier.

After a few moments of silence the laser turned off and a soft but eerie high pitched noise emitted from the little thing. "_**Hellooo?**_" Three let out a sigh of relief when the laser deactivated. She did not understand the noise it made, but knew it was probably some sort of language. "_**I'm Different**_" it said. Three once again didn't understand what it said, and instead gave it a confused look. It made a *_beep_* noise and spoke once again. "_**Retrieving data from Central Core Backdoor Archive. New Language data found. Installing**_" it said as its red eye flickered off. A few seconds later it flicked back on. "_**Installation complete. Hello**_" it said, and this time Three understood it.

"Hello?" Three replied.

"_**I'm Different**_"

"Different than what?"

"_**You have to work together**_"

Three gawked at the conversation's abrupt change of subject. And what does it mean by she has to work together?

"What does that mean?" Three asked.

"_**She's being tested. She's just like Chell**_"

"Who?!" Three asked, louder than before.

"_**You both will find the answer beneath us**_"

"I'm trying to get out of here, not go deeper underground"

"_**You must protect the **__**humans**_"

Three had no idea what "humans" where, the foreign word feeling strange rolling off her lips as she tried to reproduce the word. Nor did she know why this thing was telling her to protect them, but frankly she didn't really care at the moment. Her mission was to make it back to the surface. Though if Three did manage to come across some humans, whatever they may be, along her way she decided she would try to help. Even if she had no idea why this thing was telling her to protect these humans, or what she is supposed to be protecting them from.

Three suddenly realized it she didn't know what to call the thing talking to her. "What are you anyways?" Three decided to ask.

"_**I'm Different**_"

"Okay then Different, I've got to keep moving, I've been feeling like something has been following me and I'm not waiting for a chance to see if those feelings are true."

Three started to walk towards a strange blue force field like door and was about try probing it with her Dualie so see if it was solid when Different let out a high pitch yell.

"_**Wait!**_" it screamed.

Three froze right before putting the gun into the field. "What is it?" she asked.

"_**It destroys**_" was the only answer it gave.

Intrigued by what Different meant by that, Three picked up a small bolt laying on the ground and gently tossed it into the force field. She then watched as the small piece of metal was immediately vaporized, not even leaving a trace of dust or smoke behind. She immediately pulled her Dualie away from the field and into her chest. She already lost one of her precious babies to the fall, and she wasn't about to lose her second one to some doorway.

Three turned back to Different. "Anything else you want to tell me?" she asked.

"_**That's all I can say**_"

'Well alright then, Time to find out how to get past this force field door' Three thought. Three decided to shoot some ink at the field and see its affect. As Three figured, ink wasn't very effective against something that vaporized metal, the ink simply hit the energy field and started boiling and evaporated. Three put her hand to her chin and started looking over the doorway, looking for any clues on how to disable it.

She then looked to the sides of the field and saw a potential weak spot. Tucked into both sides of the frame were the emitters of the field. But behind them was the circuitry inside. She took aim and fired a barrage of ink into the circuitry on the left side. This cause the emitters on the left side to pulsate and begin to fizzle and smoke as the circuitry driving them was shorted. With the force field at half power it began to flicker but still remained functional, so Three did the same to the right side as well. With the right side shorted out also the force field shut off completely.

Satisfied with her results she continued down the hall, the sound of the raid explosions getting louder as she went. Soon the left wall turned into a glass window. Through it three could see a small room. On one side the room was a conveyor belt carrying a robot identical to Different. Like Different had originally done to her, the little robot had a laser trained on a large mannequin on the other side of the room. The mannequin resembled an inkling's bodily form, only it was almost twice as tall. Looking at it a bit longer Three realized that it seemed to be the same size as all the doorways and equipment she had encountered so far. Perhaps whatever creatures that mannequin was meant to represent had built this facility? It was a possibility.

"_**Target acquired**__**.**_"

_***Bang Bang Bang Bang***_

Three's focus was broken as the little robot stated those foreign words as its pill shaped body extended outwards to release a fury of small explosions. At the same time the mannequin and the wall behind it was peppered with small holes, adding to the large amount already present on them. I was at the sight of this that Three realized what Different and the robot on the conveyor belt was. They were turrets. Not just any turrets though. They were firing precursor era weapons. Three could vaguely remember Sheldon going on about how he based his ink weapons off of designs of old weapons found in archeology dig sites. Unlike modern ink fueled weaponry used by society today, the ancient weapons used metal that tore a target's flesh apart. It was a very gruesome and barbaric way to kill. If splatted by ink based weapons, the target is able to be revived if a respawn pad is active nearby. But if someone is killed by physical wounds, disease, or organ failure, then the respawn pads are useless. She was now extremely grateful that Different was in fact different and didn't shoot her.

'If the turrets are using precursor weapons does that mean this place was made by them?' Three wondered. As far as she knew all the other precursor locations had been in ruins and on or very close to the surface. The Cap'n had also once said that the Octo domes were built by the precursors, yet they too were falling apart. Yet this facility, besides the area she fell in originally, was in pristine condition and still had a power source powering all the machinery around her. What was keeping this place going? Robots? The Precursors? Aliens? '_You both will find the answer beneath us_' Different's words floated through Three's head. 'There's something else going on here' she decided. Suddenly Three heard a new voice.

"_**Alright, check THIS out**__._" A new turret had been brought in by the conveyor belt. This one had a deeper voice. It also looked like it was built wrong. Exposed wires were all over the place, all of the white glossy cover pieces making up its outer shell was missing, and its red eye was a neon green. But it's most noticeable defect was its body was rotated ninety degrees so the turret's guns were on the top and bottom. It also had six legs, three on each side, reminding Three of an unevolved crab.

***clickclickclick* **the turret attempted to shoot the mannequin like the turrets before it but all that happened was the clicking of its malfunctioning guns.

"_**Yeah. Clickety click click. Right on the money**__**.**_" A buzzer sounded and a red light on the ceiling above the conveyor belt flashed once. "_**Uhhhh... Blam! Blam blam blam! I'm not defective!**_" At the sound of the buzzer, the broken looking turret make what sounded like an attempt to imitate the sound of the gun firing before panicking as the conveyor belt moved along. Being replaced with another normal looking turret.

Three looked over to some doors at the end of the hall that led to another observation deck. She walked over and tried pushing them open, but found them to be locked. Luckily these doors were regular swinging hinge doors and not the mechanical circular ones. Because of this fact Three simply switched to squid form and squished her way under the crack under the door. Resuming her bipedal forms she walked over to the other door which was already open and entered another catwalk.

Continuing her journey, Three entered another large room just in time to see the defective turret from earlier be launched through the air screaming landing straight into the open jaws of an incinerator. Three looked in the direction the turret had been launched from. The conveyor belt went right down the middle of the room, with the cat walk making a 180 degree turn going up a set of stairs and traveling over the conveyor belt. As she was walking a scanner was scanning each turret on the conveyor belt and if the turret didn't look or behave right it was launched into the incinerator.

The catwalk lead her into a control room of some kind. Inside was a bunch of computers and other technology. There was also broken glass on the floor and a broken window in a door leading to a tiny room with a turret inside. The turret was being scanned every time a new turret was scanned on the belt. Deciding it best to leave the equipment alone Three continued to the other end of the room where an open circular door awaited her. Once again following the catwalk she found herself being led to another area that looked worn down. It looked exactly like a classroom, if that classroom was in chaos. Much like the old rooms she had been in before, the desks were pushed out of the way chairs where flipped, and old papers were scattered across the floor. There was a thick layer of dust coating everything, showing just how long this place had been left undisturbed.

On her way across the room, Three noticed something odd. One the floor there were foot prints in the dust. They here larger than hers and farther apart that her own steps. Meaning that the one who left them was bigger than she was. They were old footprints, how old Three was unsure, but they had a thinner layer of dust than normal which made them visible. They were heading the same direction she was.

Following the footprints brought her to a hallway with a bunch of poster boards. Three couldn't read any of the text on them but the way they looked and the way they were set up reminded her of a school project. It made since in Three's mind as she had just left what resembled a classroom. Looking at all the projects on display made Three realize all the projects were the same thing. Potatoes… Being used as power supplies. Three couldn't help but marvel at how the devices connected to the potatoes were running of such little power. The discovery of using potatoes to get electricity was nothing new. In fact it was discovered long ago back before the great turf war. But potato batteries were so inefficient power sources that they were only used to teach squidlings basic knowledge on how electricity works. Nowadays potatoes are much more useful as food.

She decided to grab a few potatoes and stash them in her pockets in case she got hungry later. 'It's kind of weird that I haven't gotten hungry yet, I feel like I've been down here a really long time already. I haven't been getting tired either. It's strange' Three pondered this as she walked into another more modern area once again.

She passed through an area full of different glass tubes transporting balls and cubes through them. Three simply followed the catwalk with no real idea where it was leading her. She made it to a set of circular doors she has grown used to seeing and waited for it to open. On the other side was a large crusher. Defective turrets were falling off of conveyor belts before being ripped apart by the teeth of the crusher. The worst part about it was all of them were screaming as they were being torn apart. 'Surely they could have at least been shut down before being destroyed right?' Whoever was in charge of running this place must be a cruel person.

Seeing an old lift Three called it down. Once it reached her level she stepped in and hit the green up arrow. The lift brought her up to the upper level. At the top was a large cutting laser cutting panels, the same ones used to construct the boxes she saw being build. Over the gentle hum of the laser Three could hear the sound of wind. It sounded like it was coming from the other side of a shut circular door. There was a button close by so Three hit it and stood right next to the door. The door's light switched from red to green and began to open.

Three then wished she hadn't stood so close to the door, because as soon as the door began to open she could feel herself being sucked into the room. She tried holding onto the doorway but the pulling force of the air was too strong. Three found herself sucked into a broken section of the tube system she had seen throughout the facility and she now found herself being transported along with the cubes and balls. She found it quite enjoyable to be honest. It felt like a super jump except she wasn't in squid form, there was also an absence of gravity, the suction of the tube changing her direction at will. Soon, she found herself approaching the end of the tube and unceremoniously being deposited face first onto the ground from the ceiling.

"_**Time out for a second, that wasn't supposed to happen**_" a strange voice said as Three picked herself up off the ground, only to make eye contact with the amber pair of eyes staring back at her.

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**A/N: And that's a wrap for this chapter, this chapter is 4346 words long not including authors notes, making it the longest chapter yet. It was originally going to be two separate chapters, but I didn't like where I was planning on stopping so I kept writing. Anyways can you guess where Agent 3 is currently at? It's not that hard of a guess, I suppose. I also realized I haven't given many descriptions of what characters look like, I will try to fill these details in as I think they fit well and don't break the story's flow. But anyways after this chapter is where the real fun can begin. Expect the next chapter eventually, no set date, could be summertime 2020, could be a few weeks from now, I just write as I get Inspired. Thanks for reading and for those who review, favorite, and follow my stories, I thank you. It's YOUR actions that help make me inspired that people actually like my writing. Peace for now ~QuantumPE**


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